Sanyo waterproofs the Xacti camera

Just in time for the Japanese summer Sanyo Electric Co. will launch in June a waterproof version of its Xacti digital video camera.

The DMX-CA65 can be fully submerged to a depth of 1.5 meters and still keep on recording, the company said Thursday. That's significantly better than a model launched last year that was able to withstand splashes of water but not a dunking.

The new Xacti retains the distinctive design of the series and packs a 6-megapixel image sensor. It records images and video only onto an SD memory card.

The camera uses the MPEG4 AVC/H.264 compression system. Until recently Xacti models recorded in basic MPEG4 but with new models the company has gone for the more advanced version. The result is movie files that are smaller in size and therefore more recording time for a given amount of memory.

There are four video recording modes. At the high end TV-SHQ lays down a 3 Mbps (megabits-per-second) 640 pixel by 480 pixel resolution video at 30 frames per second and at the low end Web-HQ marries 320 pixel by 240 pixel resolution video with a 15 frames-per-second recording rate.

Recording time varies on the mode and capacity of the card being used. In the case of a 4G-byte card it's between 2 hours and 45 minutes and 64 hours and 53 minutes, according to Sanyo.

The screen was particularly good. It is bright and visible from most angles, however heat is an issue, particularly around the Windows button on the front, and on the back where the battery housing is located.

My first impression after unboxing the Q702 is that it is a nice looking unit. Styling is somewhat minimalist but very effective. The tablet part, once detached, has a nice weight, and no buttons or switches are located in awkward or intrusive positions.

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